Saving Seafood

Regulators to discuss monitor costs in northeast cod fishery

April 16, 2018 — MYSTIC, Conn. — Commercial fishing managers will consider the subject of who pays for at-sea monitoring that is needed to craft regulations about the industry.

The cost of monitoring in the New England cod fishery has been a source of controversy in recent years. The federal government shifted the cost to fishermen a couple of years ago.

The New England Fishery Management Council is expected to take up the issue of industry-funded monitoring Thursday at a meeting in Mystic.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

 

Fishing council to hear sectors’ post-Rafael plans

April 16, 2018 — The New England Fishery Management Council will be updated on the groundfish crisis involving several New Bedford-based fishing sectors when it convenes for three days of meetings next week in Mystic, Connecticut.

The groundfish presentation by staff from the Gloucester-based Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office will be the centerpiece of the groundfish report on Wednesday and is designed to provide “an overview of (Northeast Fishing) Sector IX’s steps to address its shortcomings, as well as a summary of Sector IX’s operations plan,” according to the agenda for the meetings.

“The New Bedford sector has submitted its operations plan to GARFO and this will be an overview of what they’ve done to address the problems and what they need to do to have a new plan approved,” said council spokeswoman Janice Plante.

Plante said the presentation will not include comment from officials with the New Bedford fishing sectors.

NOAA Fisheries shut down Sector IX last November, withdrawing its operation plan for the remainder of the 2017 fishing season and into the 2018 season set to begin May 1.

The extraordinary move came in the wake of the conviction and sentencing of New Bedford fishing kingpin Carlos Rafael on charges of tax evasion, money laundering and bulk smuggling.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

NEFMC Meeting: April 17-19, 2018, Mystic, CT, Listen Live, View Documents

April 11, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold a three-day meeting from Tuesday, April 17 through Thursday, April 19, 2018. The public is invited to listen-in via webinar or telephone. Here are the details.

MEETING LOCATION:  Hilton Hotel, 20 Coogan Boulevard, Mystic, CT 06355; Hilton Hotel Mystic.

START TIME:  The webinar will be activated at 8:00 a.m. each day. However, please note that the meeting is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday and 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. The webinar will end at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST or shortly after the Council adjourns each day.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION:  Online access to the meeting is available at Listen Live. There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

CALL-IN OPTION:  To listen by telephone, dial +1 (914) 614-3221. The access code is 167-206-035. Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

AGENDA:  The agenda and all meeting materials are available on the Council’s website at April 17-19, 2018 NEFMC Mystic.

SPECIAL EVENT:  The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) Office of Renewable Energy Programs will be holding an open house on Tuesday and Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in conjunction with the Council meeting. The event will be held in the Clipper Room near the Council’s main meeting room. BOEM has scheduled this open house to: (a) gather feedback on recently proposed commercial offshore renewable energy projects; (b) enhance communications between leaseholders and the fishing community; (c) answer questions about future leasing; and (d) solicit public comment on recently published public notices, including the Vineyard Wind project, which currently is under a 30-day public comment period with five public hearings scheduled from April 16 through April 19. Four will be held in Massachusetts (New Bedford, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Hyannis) and one in Kingston, RI. Learn more at Vineyard Wind notice and hearing schedule and visit open house.

GROUNDFISH NOTE:  On Wednesday morning, the Council will receive an overview of Northeast Fishery Sector IX’s steps to address its shortcomings, as well as a summary of Sector IX’s proposed operations plan as submitted to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office. Because of recent information received from the industry, NMFS’s consultation with the Council on Sector IX likely will include: (a) discussion of the proposed Sector VII operations plan amendments that relate to Sector IX; (b) other sectors as they relate to Sector IX; and (c) effects on the sector system generally. The Council may provide recommendations to NMFS on any topics discussed.

 THREE MEETING OUTLOOK:  A copy of the New England Council’s Three Meeting Outlook is available HERE.

 

NOAA Fisheries Announces New Habitat Management Measures for New England Fisheries

April 4, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries has approved measures of the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment 2. This amendment updates the Essential Fish Habitat designations required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act with the latest scientific information, and minimizes the effect of fishing on that habitat while balancing the economic needs of the fishing industry.

The approved measures include:

  • Revisions to the essential fish habitat designations for all New England Fishery Management Council-managed species and life stages;
  • New Habitat Areas of Particular Concern to highlight especially important habitat areas;
  • Revisions to the spatial management system within the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and the southern New England area to better align with scientific advice on how and where to protect essential fish habitat while balancing the economic needs of the fishing industry;
  • Establishment of two Dedicated Habitat Research Areas, seasonal spawning protection measures, and a system for reviewing and updating the proposed measures.

The approved measures are effective on April 9, 2018.  

Two important notes:

Closed Area I North will remain closed until April 15 to protect spawning. This closure applies to all fishing vessels, except vessels in transit, vessels fishing with exempted gears, vessels fishing in the mid-water trawl exempted fishery, charter and party vessels, private recreational vessels, and scallop dredges.

The Spring Massachusetts Bay Spawning Closure will be closed April 15-30. This closure applies to all vessels, except vessels without a federal northeast multispecies permit fishing exclusively in state waters, vessels fishing with exempted gears or in the mid-water trawl purse seine exempted fishery, scallop vessels on a day-at-sea, scallop vessels in the dredge exemption area, transiting vessels, and charter/party and private recreational vessels.

For more information, read the permit holder bulletin. Also, see the map of the final approved habitat areas below. The dashed lines show the boundaries of the existing closed areas and habitat closures.

Learn more about NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region by visiting the site here.

 

Don Cuddy: Proposed Magnuson Stevens changes are reasonable

April 2, 2018 — I am wondering how much commercial fishermen know about acting? At a guess I’d say probably as much, or as little, as most actors know about commercial fishing, even award-winning ones. This thought arose following the recent appearance in these pages of an opinion piece on fishery management by a member of the acting profession in an attempt to wield political influence.

The thespian in question is also an Oceana board member, a well-funded environmental group antithetical to America’s oldest industry. This group has been known to advance claims which fail to resonate with real scientists. One particularly misleading report ‘Wasted Catch,’ launched by Oceana on a credulous public in 2014, drew a letter of censure from all eight of our nation’s regional Fishery Management Councils. Among other things the letter stated:

“While we acknowledge that there are no laws requiring Oceana reports to accurately represent the best available scientific information or to undergo peer review, to do so would be in the best interest of all involved parties. This is why we suggest that you retract the report until it is reviewed and corrected.” http://www.mafmc.org/newsfeed/wasted-catch

The Magnuson Stevens Act which governs fisheries in federal waters requires reauthorization and it is currently under review. Changes proposed in a bill now before Congress were denounced by this Oceana advocate as “counter factual, anti-science, anti-conservation.”

The frothy plea to our congressman is for maintenance of the status quo in fishery management. And the argument carries weight because it comes from a well-known actor? Well sir, Nature isn’t listening. And the modest proposals in H.R 200, intended to remove some of the onerous provisions burdening our fishermen, have generated a predictable response from environmentalists who dismiss realities which do not fit their agenda. Change is needed.

The act as written, for example, calls for rebuilding all stocks to maximum sustainable yield simultaneously and imposes timeline to achieve that. I called my friend Dave Goethel for his take on that. “That ignores Nature. It’s a biological impossibility,” he said. “Something will always be overfished. The reason haddock are up and cod are down now is because they occupy the same ecological niche.”

Dave is a working commercial fisherman with a degree in marine biology who served two terms on the New England Fishery Management Council. He doesn’t act but he has been fishing for 50 years. Fishermen, he said, are simply hoping to introduce a little flexibility on these rigid rebuilding timelines which were imposed more or less arbitrarily when the act was written.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Sector IX vessels make a move to lease quota

March 30, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Fifty-five vessels have left Sector IX, but they still can’t fish. However, they can lease their groundfish quota.

The 55, including four Carlos Rafael vessels subject to forfeiture, were submitted to be included in Sector VII for the 2018-19 fishing season, according to NOAA and Sector VII.

The move comes after six months of negotiations with NOAA in trying to get an operational plan approved, which would have lifted the groundfishing ban.

Had a move not been made, the vessels would have remained in Sector IX without the ability to lease quota. Three Sector IX vessels will remain in the sector.

The deadline for vessels to change sectors was Monday.

“What are we supposed to do,” Sector VII President Richie Canastra said. “The enrollment was Monday where you have to choose your sector for the 2018 and 2019 fishing season. No answer (from NOAA) was there yet. So those vessels and the permits owned by Carlos went to Sector VII.”

Canastra said the vessels affected by NOAA’s ban can only return to fishing with authorization from the agency or if they are sold to an independent party.

“It’s really straight forward. None of this was done to try to pull the wool over someone’s eyes or being sneaky,” Canastra said. “I just think it’s the right thing to do. I really believe the people in the industry will understand it’s the best move for everyone.”

The shift in sectors also included the additions of Richie Canastra as President, Tor Bendiksen as Treasurer and Cassie Canstra as Clerk to Sector VII.

In a letter from NOAA’s Regional Administrator Michael Pentony to the Chair of the New England Fishery Management Council John Quinn, he confirmed that the vessels would be allowed to transfer quota. He also confirmed that all vessels owned by Rafael would be inactive, unless they are sold to in independent party.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Massachusetts: A shell game in New Bedford? 55 boats scramble out of Sector IX, catching NOAA by surprise

March 30, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Something fishy is going on in New Bedford (excuse the terrible pun).

On March 26, the final day for sectors to confirm their rosters and membership for the 2018 fishing season, NOAA got letters from sector VII saying that no vessels will remain in Sector VII who were there last year, and that 16 of these vessels are joining sector VIII.

Then they were told that 55 vessels from sector IX are joining sector VII, including the 4 vessels owned by Carlos Rafael that have been judged subject to forfeiture.

Meanwhile, a separate letter from sector IX said that only three vessels would remain in that sector, that it would operate solely as a lease sector and those vessels would not fish.

What is going on here?

First, all three sectors VII,VIII, and IX are New Bedford groundfish sectors approved under the Northeast Groundfish management plan.

Each year, these sectors have to submit operation plans to NOAA, including the roster of vessels and the rules under which the vessels in the sector will fish.

After the guilty plea by Carlos Rafael, and the admission last fall by sector IX that its vessels, primarily associated with Rafael, had engaged in overfishing, NOAA suspended the operating permit for that sector.  That meant no vessels in that sector could continue to fish.

Since the fall negotiations have been going on between NOAA and Sector IX over how Sector IX might return to operations.  The primary obstacle is that NOAA has required the Sector to account for its overfishing, and to calculate how much fish must be deducted from its current allotments in order to pay back fish illegally harvested.

Secondly, NOAA has insisted on Sector IX developing a monitoring and catch reporting plan that would prevent illegal fishing.

By March, neither side had reached an agreement, and the issue of Sector IX was going to be a prominent part of the New England Fishery Management Council Meeting next week.

NOAA was blindsided by the switcheroo.

Much of what is going on in New Bedford is with the same actors.  Three Board Members from Sector IX would join the Board of Sector VII.  Meanwhile, the manager of Sector IX, Stephanie Rafael-DeMello, has said she would be moving to fleet operations management for Rafael’s vessels, instead of continuing full time as the manager of Sector IX.

One interpretation of this switch is that Sector IX is being effectively disbanded.

However, not all the promises made by Sector IX to NOAA are being carried over as the vessels move to sector VII.

One point mentioned in NOAA’s letter to the council is that Sector VII has requested that vessels owned by Carlos Rafael remain inactive in the fishery, although with rights to lease their quotas to other sectors or intra-sector, unless they are sold to another party.

But the 55 vessels transferring to Sector VII, including all those currently listed as inactive, could become operational within Sector VII with no changes to existing ownership.

Under NOAA rules, if a sector disbands after having overfished, the overfishing penalty is allocated among the vessels that had previously been in the sector, and deducted from their new sector allocation.

As Sector IX was unable to provide information about the overages of specific vessels, the time and cost of allocating the overages to the remaining vessels transferring out of the sector may be substantial.

The three inactive vessels remaining in Sector IX appear to be willing to shoulder the penalty, once it is agreed upon, and to pay it by having the overages deducted from the amount of their quotas that are leased. The move appears to be an attempt to get the other Sector IX vessels out from under the obligation to payback the sector overages.

All of this will be discussed at the council meeting, which promises to be interesting.

The driving factor here is that the New Bedford Auction, owned by the Canastra Brothers, needs to get some volume of groundfish back.  This has been greatly reduced by the suspension of sector IX.  Rafael vessels represented the largest source of groundfish for the private New Bedford auction.

The Canastras first tried to buy Rafael’s boats.  This did not go anywhere, as NOAA needs to give its approval.  Then they tried to set up a way to satisfy NOAA on Sector IX overages without providing a detailed accounting.  This was not accepted either.

Now they have participated in a wholesale abandonment of Sector IX and moved vessels to Sector VII, with the aim of first, hoping the vessels will be allowed to fish, or that in this situation inactive vessels can become active though still owned by their original Rafael connected owners.

Secondly, they may be hoping to clear the way for a sale of these vessels who are now potentially operating in a less tainted sector.

There has been a continuing political effort in New Bedford to try and keep the groundfish volumes that had been part of Rafael’s fishing operations within the port.

All of this maneuvering avoids the basic question before NOAA and the Council, which is whether the permits for the vessels that are now suspended will simply be allocated to New Bedford, or will they be subject to distribution to the rest of the New England groundfish fishery that was harmed by the rampant overfishing taking place in New Bedford.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

NOAA: Georges Bank Ecosystem Strategy Peer Review

March 29, 2018 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The New England Fishery Management Council is exploring options for ecosystem-based fishery management. An ecosystem-based approach to management would allow a variety of factors — from fishery stock status to ecosystem conditions to human dimensions — to be considered in developing fishery management decisions.

The council requested peer review of a proposed ecosystem management procedure and the models used to test that procedure. The federal government furlough earlier this year forced a delay of this review, now rescheduled for April 30-May 4 at the NEFSC Woods Hole Laboratory.

More details on the meeting logistics and the peer reviewers are now posted.

Learn more about NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Science Center by visiting their site here.

 

NEFMC: SSC Listening Session Wednesday, April 4

March 29, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will meet via webinar on Wednesday, April 4, 2018 to discuss a draft document regarding “best scientific information available.” The public is invited to listen via webinar or telephone. Here are the details.

START TIME:  1:00 p.m.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION:  Online access to the meeting will be available at Listen Live. There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

CALL-IN OPTION:  To listen by telephone, dial +1 (951) 384-3421. The access code is 657-881-243. Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

AGENDA:  The SSC will review a draft document, which was distributed by NOAA Fisheries, titled “Framework for Determining that Stock Status Determinations and Harvest Specifications are Based on the Best Scientific Information Available.” The SSC will discuss the draft and develop comments for consideration by the New England Fishery Management Council.

MATERIALS:  Meeting materials are available on the Council’s website at SSC April 4, 2018 documents.

 

Analyses not ready for at-sea monitoring meetings

March 26, 2018 — Let’s kick off today’s edition of FishOn with a little programming note, courtesy of the New England Fishery Management Council.

If you had planned on traveling to Boston on Monday, March 26, to attend the council’s groundfish advisory panel meeting on at-sea monitoring, don’t. And don’t bother heading down there on Tuesday, either, for the scheduled meeting of the council’s groundfish committee on the same subject.

Actually, you’re free to go to Boston. Just don’t go to the meetings. Due to the fact that there apparently are no more groundfish, the meetings have been postponed. Kidding. Just kidding. We’ve got a whole ocean of groundfish out there.

In fact, the meetings have been postponed to a yet-to-be-determined date in May because there is more work to be done on the technical analyses used as the basis for discussions by both the advisory panel and the groundfish committee as a whole.

“The necessary analyses aren’t ready yet, either for the groundfish committee or the advisory panel, to discuss Groundfish Monitoring Amendment 23,” Janice Plante, council spokeswoman, said in a Friday email. “And Amendment 23 was the focus of the meetings.”

The council staff, she said, has been working feverishly to finish the council framework that includes specifications for the upcoming groundfish season, including catch limits for 20 groundfish stocks. They also have been working at trying to complete a separate measure dealing with recreational cod and haddock measures.

Both proposed rules have been published in the Federal Register and regulators are seeking stakeholder comment on both.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times